Chapter 51 - Imprisonment? (2)

A week had already passed since Acel regained consciousness.

Irina and Bell returned to Wyheim a few days ago. But Ena still remained near Acel, spending time closest to him. It would be a lie to say it wasn't burdensome, but even so, Acel didn't particularly push away his master's concern and affection.

It was natural. Ena hadn't stayed here for her own benefit, but purely to take care of Acel, so there was no reason to push her away.

However, separate from that, not letting him go outside the room at all was a bit much.

"Can't I go for a short walk?"

"No."

"When will I return to the Academy?"

"Someday."

"I need to report that I'm alive."

"Do it later."

It was always like this whenever he tried to do anything outside the room. Sometimes when Ena went out, he tried to forcibly open the door, but the magic circuit was so complex it took too long. Ena returned faster than he could undo the locking magic.

Moreover, his attempt to disable the magic was discovered, so the circuit became doubly tangled. It was amazing the formula even worked properly in that state. Acel admired Ena's skill in formula crafting while completely giving up on escaping alone.

Unless Ena left her seat for about three hours, he didn't even dare to try.

I'm completely imprisoned.

At this point, he couldn't help but realize it. Acel recognized the fact that he was imprisoned and let out a thoughtful sound. Then Ena, who was sitting next to him reading a book, glanced at him.

"What's wrong, Acel? Still hurting?"

"...No. I'm fine," Acel said while pushing up the glasses he was wearing with his index finger. 

At that answer, Ena sent a suspicious look for a moment, but soon focused on reading again. Acel secretly took off his glasses briefly, then frowned deeply as he confirmed his vision was not just blurry but shattered.

Honestly, imprisonment or whatever, as long as he was with Ena, this was fine either way. If it really became unbearable, he could ask for outside help.

The important thing was his eyes.

His body had mostly recovered. Magical power moved well, and even brief intense exercise didn't bring intense pain. But his eyes caused pain like his brain was being cooked even if he kept them properly open for a short time.

It wasn't simply pain occurring because he was right before awakening. A much higher-level cause.

I didn't know talent would blossom here too.

Acquired awakening of magic eyes wasn't common, but it was not a non-existent case either. In such cases, one awakened the most suitable magic eyes without any obstacles through some action or absorbing an elixir.

Theoretically, Acel should have been the same. But his innate talent held him back.

There are too many suitable magic eyes, so I can't choose just one.

The magic types Acel mainly handled number at least five. He also tended to apply and use basic magic from other types, and if he researched and delved into them, there was more than enough potential to use them as main powers. In this situation, with all kinds of magic eyes resonating with each magic, his eyes and brain were being overworked.

Do I have to make a choice to end this? Or should I wait?

He didn't know. The fortunate point was that thanks to the glasses, there wasn't much hindrance to daily life. It seemed there would be no problem pondering slowly until returning to the Academy. There was no need to act hastily.

Acel thought this while staring at the bracelet wrapped around his right wrist.

Putting aside concerns about magic eyes, the most important thing now was incorporating the remote interception formula he had pondered for weeks into lightning magic.

There's no need to sit at a desk and ponder.

He had already confirmed the formula. Magic that automatically intercepted and reflected attacks beyond perception. He closed his eyes and drew the intricacies of that formula in his mind. He incorporated it into the lightning formula he had long since constructed, and slowly flowed magical power. In that process, he fixed places where it got stuck or where the flow of magical power changed strangely.

The creation of magic. An extreme realm requiring a tremendous level of talent and effort, though not at the level of a grand master. Acel achieved this in less than 10 years since learning magic. It was an amazing achievement that would make most mages shed tears of blood if they realized it, but Acel himself frowned because the magic he created wasn't to his liking.

Even faster than this.

He compressed the destructive power and speed unique to lightning magic to the extreme in the created formula. Some magical power that couldn't withstand the compression burst out, but even so, he didn't stop compressing. In that state, if an attack came from outside, the compression was released and magical power and lightning explosively surge.

That was how he finished creating the magic. Since it was magic he had been planning for a long time, he had already somewhat constructed the formula in advance, so the work wasn't too difficult.

Acel opened his eyes with a satisfied smile. And met Ena's gaze looking down at him.

She blinked her lake-blue eyes and opened her mouth.

"...You just created magic."

"Ah... yes."

"What kind of magic? Show me."

Ena, who had already seen Acel create magic at the lake, wasn't surprised by the fact that he created magic. Instead, she chewed her lips curiously.

Acel smiled and showed her the magic he had created.

"I'm going out for a bit. Rest," Ena said. 

She put on her outdoor hat for the first time in a while and went outside, opening the door that had been consistently locked. Acel saw her off with a smiling face, then jumped up from his seat and opened the window.

Even this was locked by Ena so escaping through the window was impossible, but anyway, opening the window was possible.

That was exactly what Acel was aiming for. He slightly stuck his head out the window and shifted his gaze to the side. Then he could discover the messenger bird stuck in a corner, trembling. The moment its eyes met Acel's, the messenger bird ran to him while making crying sounds.

[Chirp chirp!]

"Yes, you came well."

Acel grabbed the messenger bird's hot metal neck and brought it into the room.

The messenger bird that hadn't returned after being ordered to send a letter to Ena. That metal machine had returned after Acel was imprisoned in the cathedral, but following its master's order to not show itself until directly found, it had kept waiting outside the window.

As an engineering machine with autonomy, the indefinite wait was a rather difficult experience for the messenger bird too.

Of course, Acel didn't care about such things. He immediately sat at the desk and wrote down a letter to send to the Academy.

Ena said there was no need to report his survival to the Academy. She basically didn’t like the Academy much, and with this happening too, her feelings towards the Academy must have gone below rock bottom and pierced underground.

He understood. Right now, even Acel himself felt his trust in the Academy had lowered compared to before.

They clearly said it was a request that had been reviewed, but suddenly an 8th rank necromancer popped out.

From Acel's standpoint, he couldn't help but suspect that either the Academy hadn't properly reviewed the request, or there was a traitor who had acted to drive students to their deaths.

Whether it was true or not wasn't that important. The problem was that the most prestigious Academy on the continent had acted suspiciously. Fride was probably running around making explanations by now.

But separate from that, he intended to report his survival. Rather than for the Academy's sake, it was a decision for the people he had become close to at the Academy.

Even if they weren't extremely close, the death of someone considered a friend tends to come as quite a shock.

Moreover, Grace had directly seen Acel's death in the previous iteration. If she received news of his death not long after reuniting, it was obvious her mental state that had just improved would rapidly worsen.

I have to prevent that.

It wasn't just Grace. The escaped group members including Saya. Acel didn't want to make them feel guilt or indebtedness.

"Deliver this one to the Academy headmistress. It'll be at the Academy so there's no need to give a magical power source to find the location, right?"

[Coo!]

"Good. And give this to Saya at the Academy, too. I'm counting on you again this time," Acel said while stuffing the letter into the messenger bird's body. 

The messenger bird nodded its head vigorously and greedily craved the magical power Acel gave it.

Then it disappeared while performing aerobatics through the open window. Acel closed the window back only when the messenger bird was no longer visible.

As he turned around, the unnecessarily large room came into view.

Now there's nothing particularly to do.

The letter he had finally delivered after waiting for Ena to leave her seat. There was no other scheduled task besides this. Acel pondered how to spend this time, then decided to do some light exercise.

He needed to do rehabilitation activities, anyway. He needed to oil the joints that were creaking from not being used properly for days, and stimulate the muscles to recover fallen strength.

And... thinking of strength automatically made him review the battle with the necromancer.

The battle patterns he had experienced until meeting her were mostly not moving much, acting with minimal movement while firing magic. But in fights with strong opponents like the necromancer, that was absolutely impossible. He had to move as fast as possible to change the battlefield situation or turn things to his advantage.

Stamina was essential for that.

It's annoying.

Acel sighed deeply at the fact that he had to do exercise he had never done in his life, but since exercise wasn't bad for the body, he decided to do it with a good mindset since he was doing it anyway. He immediately threw his coat on the bed and laid face down on the floor to start doing push-ups.

He relied on past life memories for knowledge about bodyweight exercises. He did push-ups to failure, then continued with squats and burpees.

After that, sweat poured like a waterfall. Acel regulated his breathing while brushing up his sweat-soaked hair, and slightly lifted his top to wipe his face.

At that moment, the door flung open and Ena returned.

"I'm back. Acel, are there any uncomfortable... places..." Ena, who had come with a bag full of bread, said, then closed the door back when she saw Acel with his upper body slightly exposed.

Bang!

The door closed with a loud sound. Ena stood in front of it and took a deep breath.

"...???"

A violent torrent of emotion that even she didn't know why she was feeling. Just from briefly seeing Acel's sweat-soaked abdomen, her head was beyond hot, about to be cooked. Her heart pounded as if broken and the blood flow throughout her body accelerated madly.

"Master? What's wrong?"

"...Ugh!!"

The electrical signals throughout her body reacted with a tingle to Acel's worried voice heard through the door. Ena prioritized calming down rather than figuring out the cause of all these abnormal phenomena.

"Hoo ha, hoo ha, hoo ha."

She took deep breaths to subdue her heart, and cooled her hot head with a mage's reason. Then her emotions settled down somewhat. Ena exhaled deeply one last time, then opened the door with her usual expressionless face.

At the same time, her eyes met Acel's standing in front of the door.

"Are you alright?" Acel asked with a sweat-soaked face.

Bang!

Ena closed the door again.